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Mental illness: Medication alone isn’t the answer
Sunday, June 3rd, 2012
May 30 2012
Canada’s first mental-health strategy, released May 8 by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, recognizes the burden on families and the role they play in recovery from illness… But when families do seek help, they are wholly unprepared for the task of monitoring and managing care, almost completely on their own… treatment needs to be more of a conversation, which includes the person with the illness, family members and mental-health professionals where everyone’s expertise contributes to mental health. “The journey to recovery is uncertain,”
Tags: disabilities, Health, mental Health, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Canada should muster the will to ease child poverty
Friday, June 1st, 2012
May 30 2012
“Canada’s child poverty rate is higher today than when that target was first announced,” a new UNICEF report finds. (The agency defines poverty as living on less than half the national median income.) We now rank a dismal 24th of 35 industrial countries, behind Britain, Australia and much of Europe. And even more disturbingly, our child poverty rate of 13.3 per cent is nearly 2 points higher than our national rate of 11.4 per cent. We’re failing our kids… At root, we need a change of mindset. Other countries find ways to put the kids first. So should we.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Child & Family Policy Context | 1 Comment »
National media coverage of the 2011 federal election was a failure
Friday, June 1st, 2012
May 31 2012
Viewers can make character judgments with relative ease, but most don’t have the time to wade through a 65-page Conservative platform and compare details with the other two major parties. Nightly newscasts should set aside time each day during the campaign period to compare various policy planks, displacing the gladiatorial contest between party leaders… Instead of daily national popularity tracking, news organizations could commission “deliberative polling,” where a large representative sample of the population is informed about a subject and then questioned about their opinion… Media organizations must adopt a democratic ethic or falter as a crucial civic link in this geographically vast and ideationally sonorous country.
Tags: ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Governance History | 1 Comment »
Canadians with disabilities could fill labour gap
Friday, June 1st, 2012
May 31 2012
According to Statistics Canada, people with disabilities are significantly under-represented in the workforce: 75 per cent of people without disabilities were employed in Canada in 2006, compared with only 51 per cent of the disabled. So how do we begin to address this gap? Let’s look at three areas: professional organizations, unions and private business… Canada leads the world in terms of access and attainment of post-secondary education for people with disabilities… Now it is up to employers, labour unions and professional regulatory bodies to work together to ensure that the human capital that has been developed as result of taxpayer and student investment in higher education is not wasted.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Homeless Joe: There are too many cracks in Ontario’s mental health system
Friday, June 1st, 2012
May 31 2012
In Toronto alone, on any given night, there are around 5,000 homeless people. As many as a third of them have a serious mental illness, like schizophrenia or severe depression… The result is a revolving door of crisis and hospitalization. The price tag for it, in Ontario alone, runs to the billions annually. And that’s just the cost to taxpayers. There is also the immeasurable cost in suffering… mental illness can not be viewed just as a health concern or tackled with one approach. The solutions cross federal, provincial and municipal political boundaries and run across multiple departments including health, education, social services, housing and corrections.
Tags: budget, disabilities, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt is tilting the playing field against unions
Monday, May 28th, 2012
May 27 2012
The labour minister seems think that if a negotiated agreement can’t be reached by a private company like CP Rail, then its management and unions should agree to binding arbitration. This is not free collective bargaining. This is settlement-imposition by government-selected arbitrators. If this is the dispute-resolution approach that the Harper government wants to use in the future then it should come clean. Stop circumventing our existing labour legislation. Bring this arbitration-based system to Parliament, and debate its implications in full view of all Canadians
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Mental health: How three people are falling through the cracks
Monday, May 28th, 2012
May 28 2012
Changing Directions, Changing Lives, a long-awaited mental health strategy by the Mental Health Commission of Canada published May 8… makes recommendations in prevention, recovery, access, diversity, First Nations and leadership. It calls on governments to increase spending earmarked for mental health by $4 billion per year — from 7 per cent to 9 per cent of all health care spending. The federal government endorsed the strategy the following day, but has made no financial commitment… Mental-health problems cost Canada at least $50 billion per year, the report estimates, which amounts to 2.8 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Tags: Health, mental Health, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
Finding jobs for disabled Canadians
Sunday, May 27th, 2012
May 27, 2012
Those unemployed and underemployed millions hit all of us in our wallets. According to Statistics Canada 12.5 million Canadians are disabled. Of those 15 to 64 years old, 54 per cent are unemployed or not in the workforce. And about half of those who are unemployed earn less than $15,000 annually… if the unemployment rate were the same for the disabled, who are capable of work, as it is for the rest of the population… There would be more taxes in government coffers and the health costs associated with disabilities would plummet as an entire population has the opportunity to feel better about themselves and lead happier lives.
Tags: disabilities, participation, poverty, rights, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 2 Comments »
EI changes driven by contempt and ideology
Sunday, May 27th, 2012
May 25 2012
Its biggest failing is that it no longer helps most of the jobless… only 40 per cent of the unemployed even qualify for benefits. In Toronto, that figure drops to 26 per cent… EI now pays for maternity, parental and compassionate leaves. It funds training programs and subsidizes self-employed fishermen. All of these may deserve government support. But they have little to do with a program that is supposed to help the jobless get by while they search for work. The government’s new rules deal with none of the program’s real problems.
Tags: economy, ideology, poverty, rights
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
A rare success in the battle against homelessness
Sunday, May 20th, 2012
May 20 2012
Woodgreen launched an ambitious fundraising campaign and began the makeover. Using private donations, in-kind contributions (flowers, bedding, pots and pans) and every source of government funding available, it transformed the Edwin from a neighbourhood embarrassment into an attractive residence for homeless men over 55. The cost was $3.8 million. It reopened in 2010. It is now a source of local pride, an architectural gem and a safe, impeccably maintained home for the 28 men who live there… A project like the Edwin is not cheap or easy… But the ideological debate is over. It is hard to argue with success.
Tags: homelessness, housing, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Delivery System | No Comments »
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